Hereafter
by Icecubey
Summary: Grief does not come with road maps. Pre & Post-Canon DM. Puzzleshipping.


Disclaimer: Yu-Gi-Oh! Duel Monsters belongs to Kazuki Takahashi, duh.

A/N: This is set in the post-canon DM-verse specifically. Also, Puzzleshipping.

Dedication: This was a very personal project for me. I dedicate this to everyone who's ever lost someone they loved and to my father, who I miss every goddamn day.

**Hereafter**

* * *

When he is born, his mother wonders if she can give him the life she knows he deserves. His father suspects she cannot. His grandfather vows to help her try anyway.

When he is five, he asks his grandfather where his grandmother has gone. The old man sighs, not yet in control of his own grief, and tells him that she has gone on without them, to the next life. The boy does not understand, but thinks his grandpa must feel the way he did when he lost his favorite marble at school. It's a terrible feeling.

When he is six, he wonders at the fabulous golden box his grandfather has given him holding puzzle pieces that seem to command a lofty import. To him, it is just another game, and the box's significance goes unheeded.

When he is seven, his mother stands just inside the shadow cast by the window curtains and weeps. His father will not come back after this summer, and she fears her son will never learn what it is to become a man, with nobody to teach him. She does not expect that her kindhearted but eccentric father will be able to fill this role. She watches her son sitting outside the window with a bucket of chalk, drawing shapes on the cement – alone. She weeps harder.

When he is nine, he hurls the golden box beneath his bed, kicking a single piece – the eye – against the wall. He was so sure that this year he would solve it, but his birthday is tomorrow and it still lies in too many pieces to believe he will finish it in one night. He vows that he doesn't care about solving it anymore – because he is nine, and he does not know how to be wrong.

When he is ten, he bashfully retrieves the eye piece from the floor, turning it over in his hand. The weight of it is warm, familiar – he has stared at this piece for four years, longing to see what it looks like complete. He closes his fingers over the smooth metal, and he does not question the soothing calm that settles on him like a mist. He fishes the box from beneath his bed and lays the pieces before him to make sure that he has all fourteen, a few still coupled together. He whispers apologies to the artifact as he absently strokes the _udjat_– this time his resolve will not waver.

On the day he turns eleven, he asks his grandfather why he cannot seem to make friends. His mother listens on, bitter, as his grandfather pulls down a game from a display shelf and perpetuates the cycle she believes only she can see.

In the months leading up to his thirteenth birthday, his grandfather first notices the occasional limp in his step and the bags beneath his eyes. He asks dozens of questions and tries to pry admission from his grandson about the horrors of his school days; the boy says nothing. He has become exceptionally good at downplaying awful realities by replacing them with polite excuses. He is determined to see the silver lining in everything – because if he does not, there will be no point to waking up in the morning.

When he is thirteen, he asks his family if they believe he'll ever do anything of importance with his life. They are scandalized by the suggestion that he will not make something great of himself – his mother's secret doubts are negated by his grandfather's burgeoning idealism. None of them have any idea of the upheaval waiting mere months ahead.

Later that year, he becomes single-mindedly infatuated with solving the puzzle. It has taunted him for eight years, its meaningfully carved pieces representing fractions of a great enigma he is desperate to solve. The eye beckons him, winking beneath the light of his desk lamp. In the dark, he thinks he hears whispers from the golden artifact, caressing his mind and setting his nerves on end. It is tantalizing – he works into the nights feverishly, wondering what it will feel like to see the amulet united. The anticipation ignites a lust in him that he has never felt before.

When he is fourteen, he brings the puzzle to school with him, toiling with the unfinished project between class periods. His classmates gather around him and marvel at the valuable and beautiful trinket. His teachers frown as they wonder why he would be so foolish as to bring such a precious keepsake to school, when they know the boy is a frequent target for aggressors. But he is invincible, in his cocoon cast by the radiance of the golden jigsaw. Aware of the audience his methodical attention has garnered, he wonders if the puzzle will be the key to him finding friends at last.

One ordinary night that month, it is done. Hand shaking with the finest tremor, he slides the _udjat_ into place and the puzzle is at last completed. In his mind, he holds the tenuous prayer for friendship, feeling it fluttering in his heart like a bird. He barely has time to consider his victory before blinding light bursts from the relic – in the moments before he blacks out, he marvels at the comforting warmth and security that settles over his mind; it is terrifying and wonderful at once. Then it is dark.

He is fourteen, and he is whole, but he does not know it.

In the spring before his fifteenth birthday, he boards a boat that he has no idea will deliver him to a destiny he will first embrace and years later lament. He travels to the island with his friends at his side, determined to save his grandfather from magic he does not understand. He knows he can succeed, with the puzzle around his neck and the deck he has labored over relentlessly. For the first time, amongst the alarmingly staked duels of the island, he speaks to his other self. He is scared, but assured at once, because he suspected and now he knows: In the coming trials, his other will not abandon him – because they are partners – though if that be a blessing or a curse, he cannot yet say.

When he is fifteen, he staggers to see the difference a year has made. He is surrounded by his friends and peers, laughing over the most recent mishap that has brought yet another kind face into their circle. He cradles the puzzle, knowing he has it to thank; the returned tingling heat in his fingertips is his answer.

Weeks later, fire threatens separation that he swiftly realizes is unbearable to consider. He does not regret his brush with death, nor the endangerment of his friends, to maintain his connection with the nameless spirit. The night after, he does not hesitate when he commits himself to his other forever, because their union is as natural as breathing. He will remember later with bittersweet remorse that this was their last night of blissful ignorance, for the day after will bring knowledge that will set them on a steady course to the end.

The days comprising the tournament encompass events that age him beyond the time that elapses. He is confronted with the cruel reality that they are not to last – this bond, almost chemical in its abject perfection, will be severed in pursuit of that which his other so desperately wants. He will do what he has to, because he could not deny his partner anything, even if it will break him. Gathering the Ring and Rod, he moves one step closer to a future he suspects he will never be prepared for.

As he turns sixteen, he gains a glimpse of what life apart will be like. Trapped in a cursed tableaux, hours stretch into days of being alone with himself once more. It is a feeling he was blithe to forget, willing the loneliness of childhood to submit to the vigor of his precious, still-young friendships. In horror, he is aware that there is one bond among the few that he is desperate to restore – the separation is a roiling sickness in his gut that makes him clamber toward unconsciousness at every opportunity. When he is suddenly aware that they are reunited, the tidal relief staggers him. Equilibrium is restored, and there is nothing they cannot do to right the Atlantian madman's wrongs. They are together, and they are indomitable.

At the end of summer, there is another tournament to add to his credentials. This will be the start of the final movement in their odd romance. Mercifully, he does not know it at the time – he rejoices in another shared victory, oblivious as fate rushes toward them.

That winter, he visits a country he has never been to. Paradoxically, no place has ever affected him more – it has changed his entire life from thousands of miles away. In search of his partner's name, he and his friends are committed to the desert's mysterious underground. The events that follow are otherworldly and transcend explanation. They are delivered to a truth they have been chasing for two years: their spirit was a living Horus once and he is nameless no more. With grave dedication, neither can permit the other a lengthy audience; if they linger too long, their resolves will falter – because this is the finale of their twisted odyssey, and they cannot let breathe their hearts' whispered entreaties and choked regrets. They stand before the otherworld's threshold.

It is the season of death now. Appropriately, he has delivered his most beloved companion to the reaper's door. Though his most secret of hearts has rebelled all along, he has expedited their arrival to this moment with tireless effort. He has risen to every challenge, surmounted all obstacles, and fought with selfless abandon to reach this point of no return – because nobody deserves respite more than his other self. Though all around him would brook argument, he cannot see the fruits of his growth, as his partner intones that there is no one else like him in the world. This reality is his secret horror, for it is an elegy – _his _role in his life is now done, and he will disappear, like so much smoke in the wind.

This is the hour of farewell. He is a boy at odds – simultaneous swelling joy and destructive grief all warring for purchase on one heart. He has never felt more pride than he is made to feel by the sight of his partner's restoration, but it fails to thaw the shard of ice in his chest, uncomfortably close to his heart. He cannot speak when two among them beg the spirit to stay; he is relieved when another quiets their doubts, because his voice is locked by the wet ache in his throat and the sting in his eyes. He knows in that moment that it is only his blessing that will goad the king's steps forward and so he gives the last gift he is allowed – a nod of assurance, a bid to rest to a soul past its time. His last glimpses of the man in pharaonic regalia will be burned into his retina for time out of mind.

He is sixteen, and he is undone.

Spring. The season has turned its toils toward birth, but he is still trapped in that moribund place. His mother sobs at his side, begging for an answer to his troubles. He is not the son she has known for sixteen years; he is certainly not the boy who has emerged in the most recent two. His grandfather attempts to placate her, because he has knelt before a deathbed too and there is not a kind word in the world to absolve that pain.

When he is seventeen, a painful truth forces his recognition – the world bears little witness to personal grief, and it will not stop for him. He has moved past tear-filled midnights and narcotic dependence on the blanking anesthesia of his television, but he is not mended. He is the predictable shadow of himself, cowed by inconceivable woe. Those that know better attend his mourning and rue their own loss; what can be expected, at the loss of a brother, guardian, friend, comrade? They understand now that the spirit was a facet of these to each of them in his way. They shy from the ineffable certainty that for one he was all of these and something more that none of them have found in another yet – because they are still just children. Keenly aware of this injustice, the one who thought she loved the king keeps vigil at the boy's side; she folds the cartouche into tear-stained fingers and tries to ease the loss of his soul mate.

In August, he cuts a shaky line through the glossed fanbook page. When he was a boy, the arrival of the festival excited him – he would clamber at the chance to set the family's lantern in the river and choose his favorite shapes as the sweets for his grandmother's altar; now, he can barely stomach the thought of it. Setting the scissors down, he feels the wizened hands of his grandfather settle on his shoulders. Empathy hangs heavy in the silence as he slides the picture into an old, beaten frame. His gaze shifts sluggishly to the ritual sweets that his grandfather has placed on his desk. The beautiful, pastel confectionary flowers have never seemed more out of place, more disrespectfully cheerful than in that moment – because this Obon will be unlike any before; he has never had to mourn so deeply, and he feels sick at the memory of years before when he found occasion to smile on this day. He sets the photo against his wall on his mother's white linen napkin, completing the altar.

In the waning months, a familiar face returns. She is unawares when she greets him for the first time in over a year, and the loss is readily lingering in his every breath. She is sobered from her perpetually rough brand of affection with the news of one of their own's departure. In whispers she asks where he has gone. So the boy sighs, not yet in control of his own grief, and tells her that he has gone on without them, to the next life. A distant memory and clarity flash before him and with them sorrowful resignation – only now does he understand the true depth of his grandfather's grief all those years ago.

In December, he realizes the crippling power of an anniversary. All his life, he has observed arbitrary commemorations of days made relevant by others – the passing of a grandmother he barely remembers, the birth of an emperor he will never directly lay eyes upon. But on this gray day amidst a very ordinary week, it dawns on him that there is no day more powerful – more thoughtlessly arresting – than an anniversary. It has been one year since he last felt the startling completion his other brought him – one year since he gazed upon his proud, regal back as he committed himself to the liberation of death. In the space of a breath, he feels unfounded guilt for the blessedly normal life he has lived since then and the rhythm he has achieved. In the next, it is washed away by a suffocating blanket over his mind, and he is breathless in a way he has not been for many months; he's left exhausted by the sobs pressed against his pillow. Only by the silent, meticulously compassionate attention he receives at his bedside throughout the day does he realize that anyone else has remembered this anniversary.

When he is eighteen, he acknowledges the resentment and anger that have grown like a cancer on the healthy organ of his memories. The Puzzle left him hapless, incapable of controlling the greater direction of his life for two years, because the world and Duel Monsters had always come first. Now, staring out at the world without the protective shade of high school, he feels helpless and fated to a lackluster life. University seems like an unattainable dream, even as his friends encourage him and remind him of his incorruptible legacy of success. Grim, he wonders if he sacrificed his chance at a satisfying career and life for a man who chose to love and leave him. There is a disconcerting sense of déjà vu he cannot place as he hurls the puzzle box into the back of his closet.

One week later, he walks to the post office a mile from the game shop, carrying a crisp stack of pristinely labeled envelopes. As he stands before the automated service machine and pays for postage, he prays over the applications. Leaving here is his salvation. Kyushu, Hokkaido, even the too-close metropolis of Osaka would be a saving grace from the horrific crash he sees coming. Domino will be his ruin, because it is the allegory of a life he is struggling to live after he has lost the will. He has seen as his friends begin to stage their steps into the world – technical schools, dance academies, even unexpected internships – they are preparing themselves for the next verse in their epics. The future he once assumed for himself is a bright flame beckoning him as though he were the proverbial moth – it is a luminous promise, and it will surely kill him, if not by the double-edged, effervescent transience of fame, then by the painful reminder of the things he has lost for the title fueling the embers. To ascend this throne would be to plunge the knife into his own heart, and he cannot survive surrendering it for a second time.

The day before the start of Domino's Obon Festival, he receives a thick envelope. His chest is a thundering canyon as he traces the seal of the school in Sapporo. It is after midnight when he brings himself to slice open one edge, and he upends its contents onto his desk. The heat in his cheeks is distracting as he wills a hand to turn over the single page and take in the finely printed kanji – '_offer of acceptance'. _He leans back in his chair, letting it sink in; before him is his passage to freedom and a new start. He slides one foot blindly beneath his desk until it nudges the light creation stored beneath; he lifts his foot and smoothly crushes the delicate paper lantern.

When he is nineteen, he grins as he tacks a postcard of skyscrapers and sunset-filled river to the corkboard over his dormitory desk. It speaks of auditions and city walks and butterfly-laden stomachs. It is the future in a 3x5 and everything he could wish for her. They have both escaped and he is all too happy to daydream of never going back.

When he is one hour from adulthood, he gives himself a once-over in the full-walled mirror of the restaurant's bathroom. They've ordered another round of shots and its predecessors show in the rosy bloom clinging to his cheekbones; in one hour, the waitress won't be breaking any laws in serving him. He regards his healthy grin, and does not notice the edge of arrogance – the black ice that darkens his eyes – in his expression; no one out in that dining room has known him any other way, and do not see the ugly changes in his personality. Here, in the north, he is not the once-King of Games, the poster child for Kaiba Corp, or the shell of the boy he was four years ago; he is just a college student on the cusp of adulthood. He smooths out his button up, running a hand over the top of his head, hair tamped down in a wild ponytail. He has made it to this milestone on his own, and he does not acknowledge the denial that allows him to think so.

When he is twenty, he hurries his grandfather off the phone with a rush of guilt. He loves him dearly, but the low nausea of panic always accompanies suggestions of visits home and holidays in southern Honshu. When he cannot succeed in distracting his grandfather with tales of scenic hot springs, good grades, and vacations to Hokkaido, he falls into practiced fits of dismissive anger and renewed appreciation for the north; there is nothing Domino can offer him that will make the sight of the game shop – of his time-capsuled bedroom – any less chilling. It is a siren, and he has spent too many nights in this cold metropolis rebuilding to be dashed on the rocks now.

When winter is at their doorstep, he is delighted by the surprise visit of his three best friends. They have flown into Sapporo overnight, one traveling half the world to reach him on this early December day. He thinks nothing of the reason for their visit, because his friends have always been the type to act before thinking and engage in random flights of kindness – because they love him. They revel in each other's company for the first time in over a year, for they have only seen each other through the lens of a web camera since he fled to the north. But their daily correspondence has led the three to the same upsetting conclusion – the lies he has fed himself to protect his heart are poisoning it, and they cannot stand by and watch it rot anymore.

When that anniversary has come again, he flinches upon seeing the digitized numbers on his cellular that morning. Like the year before, he vows to leave it unacknowledged as he rises for the day, but it is not to be. They have risen before him, and they are a battlement between him and his carefully crafted denial. He glares, bristles and mutters harsh words when they ask him why he refuses to return to Domino. In them he expects understanding, but all he can see is concern for a suffering he believes he has bested. Then they do what he has not been able to – what he has shied from the thought of – for two years: one speaks _his_ name, while the girl pulls out the cartouche and the third brings out a worn fanbook with pictures of himself – his _other – _from the days of their faded glory. Suddenly the violent tidal swell of his past looms before him and he is powerless when it washes him asunder. On the shore, they are there crowded around him as he cowers and succumbs to a reality he has desperately tried to escape, left behind in his birthplace. The catharsis is agonizing as he surrenders to mourning for the first time since the summer two years before – they hold him as he shatters beneath the pain of their separation, again.

When the school year ends that March, he submits his withdrawal paperwork to the registrar in Sapporo.

As spring comes again, he steps out of Domino International Airport and winces under the harsh glare of the sun, even as the air around him is still crisp with the receding tendrils of winter. He cannot chase away the memories of the last time he made the trek through a terminal here – it is as if the past four years have not happened, and he is freshly numb from the break. But this time, he is received by kind, compassionate strength in the visage of his loved ones – the sight of his grandfather carries him at a sprint out the wide doors, and he cries as he buries himself in the old man's arms. They will carry him as he heals, no matter how slowly.

When June is upon them, the tomb keepers sweep through Domino once more. The museum is quiet, but he swears they can all hear his thundering pulse. Words run dry before the hesitant remorse of the desert man who once tried to destroy them. His hands tremble even as he cradles the stylized yet simple vial with reverent care. It is against Egyptian law to remove any debris from the site of that broken, unmarked shrine in the Valley, and yet the flaxen-headed man has committed this small offense, for him. No grave, no monument, no memorial – and yet here, finally, are ashes; here is one more small sign to the world that _he_ will not be forgotten, as long as he breathes. He whispers his gratitude thickly, pressing his hand to the one resting atop his shoulder.

When he is twenty-one, he girds the courage he has built these past few months to cross that small hallway to his bedroom. He has wandered near it all spring but never crossed the threshold, unwilling to face just yet what surely waits for him on the other side. They know it is a step no one can force him to take before he is ready, for in that one stride he is casting himself into the inferno – the resolve must come from within. In that most intimate space where they spent untold hours alone, the ghost is strongest and his heart has shed its layers of false protection. He cannot bring himself to face it alone, and so they offer their silent support, pressing to the wall opposite that place tensely. The air of his first breath as his bare foot alights on the carpet is pregnant; the assault of memory and regret and all-encompassing love and devotion and grief is unforgiving. One boy catches him before he hits the floor, and they help him stagger to the bathroom just in time as he vomits.

That summer is quiet as he readjusts to the remains of the life he left himself over two years ago; it is a mess, in tattered pieces made ragged and frayed by the maw of anger and denial. The game and city he abandoned have kept pace with time, without him; at the end of summer, he will begin classes at the Domino campus of Japan East University and begin to rebuild. Alone in his room one day, he is lying in the patch of sun from his skylight when he realizes he has been staring at his closet. He feels the bile in his throat as he crawls stiffly toward the door and reaches groping, timid hands into the dark. His fingers touch gold, and the tears spill onto his cheeks. He hugs the box to his chest and sobs; he begs for comfort, for the wholeness it brought him once, but the magic is gone – nothing can make them as they once were. And he coils into himself tighter, because he has been desperate to deny it until now, but he cannot anymore; the medicinal, bitter acceptance burns his throat.

When he is twenty-two, he sits beneath one of the cherry blossom trees on campus and eats lunch with the boy who might have been him, if not for the Ring's lonely brand of vengeance. Their silence is companionable, but the quiet one breaks it gently when he pulls out the faded and worn stack of cards. He has not played in six years, but the prospect is not so painful now; when he accepts half of the pile, he misses the joy and relief in his friend's eyes. He is barely aware of their spectators until there is a full crowd around them, and he chuckles because perhaps there are certain things that time has not taken from him. His brilliant smile recalls days that have long passed and the heart across from him soars.

In the second week of December, he reflects on all the Decembers that have come before. He remembers his broken heart, the tears, the anger, the denial, and all the hurt he has suffered for those two years of imperfect bliss. With slow uncertainty, he realizes that he is steady in a way he has not been since that sixteenth winter – sometime, when he wasn't looking, he had begun piecing himself back together. He smiles faintly and fingers the cartouche beneath his shirt. He remembers his partner, and the pain is manageable.

When he is twenty-three, he thinks he has finally conquered his grief; it has been years, and he is ready to box away the hurt and shelve it so it cannot taint his memory anymore. He has navigated the empty passages, the thorny walks, the grey mists of life after _him; _he has mapped them in detail, and knows every nook and cranny with resigned attention. And though he has scars, they have not been earned in vain. They have made him stronger, and for the first time, he does not feel guilty for looking ahead, without fear or sadness, to a time where he will be all right again – because seven years is long enough to mourn.

Twenty-four. He is wrong.

At the first of many weddings, he stands out on the beatific balcony, eyes not truly taking in the breathtaking surroundings as he clutches the space over his heart; his hand is white from the tightening of his veins as he holds a knot of his pressed white shirt between his fingers. This is perhaps the last, but most difficult, hill to climb. He has not been a stranger to human intimacy these past seven years, but it has only ever been physical – how could he ever form a meaningful bond with anyone, when he has been someone else, someone _less_, since that awful winter? As he focuses on some obscure star in the dark horizon, he feels a tear, rare these days, slide down his cheek. Will that love, more potent than romance, so perfect and fluid for two years, have ever meant anything at all if he replaces it with anything less – and isn't it all less? In his secret heart, he does not believe his friends, even the groom tonight, could understand what it means to have met your true other half, to know the _meaning_ and _consequence _of the vows they have taken to one another – to have felt him with you in such entirety that you scarcely can tell where one ends and the other begins. He, both blessed and cursed, has known what that feels like, and he must wonder if there can be anything after that.

That year brings many changes for everyone in his circle, but they are welcome. He watches as their dancer returns home with the East Asia troupe of her musical, and the new couple speaks of children. The gambler continues to court the beautiful drifter, while the Ring-bearer speaks of going abroad for Graduate studies. There is talk of their entrepreneur opening an academy that will make their art a degree to be earned – it is strange and exciting. The world and their lives build up around him, but he climbs the scaffolding resolutely. His mother chides that he should be taking over the shop sooner than later, because Game King titles only pay rent for so long. So he stretches his muscles and doubles his effort, in the enviable way they had once known him to.

A few months before his twenty-fifth birthday, he makes a coffee-house promise to the younger brother that he will help with the school as long as it does not affect the game shop. His grandfather is growing older now, and despite his cantankerous obstinacy, he is not as capable as he used to be. He radiates kind and assured ease as he shakes the raven-haired man's hand and winks at the sly comment made about the vacation the elder brother really should take. The younger walks away with the check, relieved the boy he used to know has returned in time to assist them.

When he is twenty-six, he agrees to the blind double-date she pries from him. Her cast-mate has agreed to dinner if only she can find a suitable match for a visiting friend; she sells him the merits of a night out, and he could never say 'no' to her. He is giddy and nervous as he shuffles beside her, fiddling with the cuff on his wrist. She leans into his side and giggles at his anxiety, threading one arm around his leanly muscled one – his glance at her is humored and laden with gratitude. Later, when they are walking the road back to her family's house in the dark, he smiles wryly to himself as she gushes about seeing the other dancer again. He is not similarly inclined to call his match back, but he finds comfort in his lack of concern. Apparently, he does not need someone taking him to dinner and warming his bed to be content; the irony feels strangely like relief.

The spring before he turns twenty-seven, he meets the boy who will one day succeed him. The academy has been a breathtaking success. His joy at the triumph of the brothers he has known since he was barely out of junior high swells at the sight of the next King of Games. They have all sacrificed to ensure that the future of the game that changed their lives will be in worthy hands, and he knows in his heart that this will be their leader; he hands over the card he is sure will steer him true. As he walks away from the bright-eyed duelist, he presses a hand to his chest, feeling the pressure of the cartouche against bare skin. He can only hope that the boy will not be put to trial with the same intensity he was – that he will not have to know the loss that he has. He wonders if his other is watching – eyes burning, he shuts them tightly and prays that he is.

When he is twenty-nine, they welcome the first baby into their midst. The parents are unlikely, but somehow it is perfectly appropriate – they will right the mistakes of their parents and bathe the child in love. He watches, heart full, as his best friend cradles his newborn – a boy, like him – and grins down at the mother, looking worn and somehow still fiery at once. He thinks to himself, standing against the window and willing the overjoyed sting out of his eyes, that this is perfect. The four of them are here, together, with still more friends in the hall, and he turns toward the window because now the tears must come – somehow, _he_ is still here, fulfilling that sincere, tenuous wish made a lifetime ago. He feels several hands on him and the warm press of the newborn against his arm. They hug him, and one another – dancer, thug, gambler, and gamer – grinning and ignoring the tears in their eyes as they rejoice at life. And he does not shy when he cries harder, because nobody could understand why better than they – he is not alone, and never was, and in that, _he _has never been gone.

The week before Christmas, he accepts an unexpected invitation to dinner with cautious hope. He stands beneath his skylight, worrying his lip as he weighs the implications of that acceptance; he paces and fidgets and wrings his hands and falls into his desk chair with a ponderous sigh. Like so many times before, his eyes track slowly to the creased magazine photo pinned between the sand vial and the wall – a fuzzy, candid snapshot of him, taking a quiet moment between duels. He strokes his fingers across the inked page, errant hand finding the cartouche around his neck again, because it is not himself in the photo – it is _him_, in one of the many private moments that had been only for them, when they would shut out the world and tune their hearts to only one another. He smiles softly, longing and fondness welling in his chest, and he feels the cartouche warm in his hand – he does not have to guess at the emotion perpetually frozen in the other's tender gaze at the Puzzle and its cradling, like something unspeakably precious, in his palms. And in that moment, he knows that his doubt is unfounded. He must live his life, because moving on does not mean letting go, and a new love could never replace the first and greatest of his life. And though he is optimistic, if nothing comes of this date or any, it is all right – because for a little while, he had _him_; he was whole and that is enough for one lifetime.

When spring is well underway, he meets with the brothers to discuss the replication of his deck. He allows a partial duplication, on the promise that it is _their_ deck – the one that saved lives time after time, a symbol of a period in his life that altered every single minute after – because he knows that it changed him and protected him and gave him everything he'd never known he had wanted, when things were easier and loss did not seem real. He looks through his cards as they make notes, and fingers the graphics in awe; they saved him in more ways than anyone could know, and perhaps another person – if it's the right person – will be as lucky.

The night before that most-awaited graduation ceremony, he dreams. He struggles to make sense of blurred watercolors and a cacophony of silence so deafening he has difficulty thinking; it is a sensation he has struggled with for thirteen years, and it is hellishly frustrating. But on this night, he earns a moment of clarity. An arresting sense of security and confidence settle on him, and he recalls a time when his naivety was protected, when he had a guardian and he took this feeling for granted – assurance, imperviousness, _safety_. He does not recall the presence of the spirit when he wakes, but he knows what to do for the boy who will succeed him.

In that dark hour when the children are tucked away celebrating, he stands before his heir, hidden in the fond caress of shadow. He is here because a very long time ago, a man had taken his hand and steered him and helped him find himself. Only now does he understand that in him, the spirit of that man has lived on and with it, he will do for this boy what his partner did for him a lifetime ago. He has watched his progress from the wings for these three years, and he has seen the signs he would have gladly left unnoticed – peculiar weather, unexplained and unnoticed changes to the city, mass amnesia. He was the chosen one of magics once, and he can see them now, strangling this boy with their red string. And though he knows that the next King will overcome them, as surely as he once did, the child has lost a piece of himself – that most precious inch – to the strain. And because he himself nearly surrendered that inch to the vultures of grief, he will fiercely protect the boy now by sending him back to a time before he knew the consequences of that loss, when 'he' was 'they', 'they' were one, and no heart was beyond their help. As he watches his protégé disappear in a blaze of light, he warms with pride, relief, and a little bit of envy – the boy will be all right, under the compassionate, untainted tutelage of his past self and partner; his job is done.

It is barely dawn when he wakes with a gasp, breaths harsh in the quiet of his bedroom. He raises a trembling hand to his chest to feel the racing rhythm making his body sway as his eyes make sense of his surroundings. He reaches into his mind tentatively, to beckon the phantom of the dream that woke him, and the truth has all the subtlety of a collision with a brick wall. He slumps forward, face falling into the shaking cradle of cupped hands as he considers whether there is any merit in wiping away the tear tracks that have set a steady course down his cheeks. It has been almost fourteen years since he felt the familiar, intimate caress of his partner's mind on his – fourteen years since he has felt _right_, balanced; it has been his waking nightmare that the memory of that feeling grows fainter with every year that passes, and that he cannot truly recall it anymore. But he thinks as his breath hitches, that he feels the impression of his other on his heart, as fleeting as the smudges of a drying footprint. He cannot grasp at the feeling, cannot pull it close and wrap himself in it as he so unknowingly, desperately once did, but he thinks he senses it there, eroding away with the return of consciousness. He turns his face upward, dragging the back of his hand across reddened eyes, and a beseeching look falls on the photo that has reminded him every day since he found it that once, for a little while, he had his soul mate and he was given a gift that some never have the relief of knowing. It is bittersweet, but he is coursing with battered joy as he eases himself back into his pillow; perhaps _he_ has always been here, and it is only now, when the wounds have healed, that he can recognize the sunlight that lit his face on a brisk day, the breezes that cooled him when he studied in the shade of the oaks on campus – the odd warmth that would flood him every time a friend's love fortified him – as his partner, comforting and helping him in the only way he could. He is still smiling when he lapses back into sleep.

When he is thirty, he looks back. When he was a baby, his mother wondered if she would be able to give him a good life; it is almost comical to consider now, in the aftermath of a lifetime's worth of experience, confined within the space of two decades. How could she have known that the fates had a grander design for him – that he would know greater strife, success, loss, love, and friendship than most in the modern era can dream of? He takes stock of his life, and finally, feels only satisfaction. All the roads he has had to walk, serpentine and sometimes treacherous, have led him here, to a place of well-being, accomplishment, and good company. He has better friends than he knows he deserves – they have stood by him through the darkest and most dangerous moments in his life without complaint, asking time and time again to shoulder more of his burden. They are the greatest treasure he could own, and their seeds came from a gilded box, preserved by destiny for three millennia. He considers the fate that he once accepted eagerly and later lamented – now, he can only be grateful that of all the people in the world he had been chosen, because the loss was not nearly as great as the gain, though it has taken many difficult years to accept. And of those gains, he must stop to think of his greatest friendship – the one he least expected, the one that gave him a brother, guardian, partner, friend, mentor – the soul mate he did not ask for but was fortunate enough to meet. Of all the things that came from the Puzzle box, he will always hold that love closest to his heart, though he barely speaks of it aloud anymore – because it has been many years since that man walked the Earth, and now is a time for those whose stories have not finished but will surely end in light. He recalls the saga that has ended, and thinks maybe he is ready to return to the place that fashioned the ink; it has been long enough.

It is a cold morning when they gather at the airport, the band that defended the world for two years. They are adults now, wiser and steadier than they were in their youth. They are parents, aunts and uncles; they are entrepreneurs, technicians, and entertainers – they are success stories that none of them dreamed they could be when they were teenagers. Now, they will return to the last scene of the chapter of their lives that prepared them to become themselves. He is quiet as they filter in around him to fill the private plane the CEO has arranged without invitation – their friends from the African desert will be waiting for them, to escort them to that sacred place, still in ruins to this day. He knows he is prepared for what awaits him, but he still feels anxiety pouring heat down his spine that pools in his chest and turns his stomach; he marvels at the idea of closure, _sincere_ and _absolute _closure. And in silence, he feels a remnant of the bright-eyed boy he'd once been, hoping against chance for a sign from the person they left there fourteen years ago.

On that anniversary, fourteen years later, he stands in the tense hush created by the unknown and needled anxiety before the crumbled skeleton of the shrine. What was once a door is a sad pile of withering rock and sand, slowly fading into the cliff side with each passing year. Their collective, nervous breathing is carried to his ears by the barest of breezes, and he feels the darting gazes that skim over him. They have all made their peace, at various intervals in the time since they were teens, all of them but one; he has not known how, until now. Fourteen years – one puzzle piece for every year it had taken for them to meet, and one for every December passed to reconcile and learn from _his_ death – a death filled with hope and new beginnings, but a death none-the-less. His hands hover at the place the golden artifact once hung, and he casts his mind back to a time when it was there, and every moment before and after. The first sound to break that silence is his watery laugh as he shakes his head.

This is the end – to the grief, the suffering, to the struggle for understanding and acceptance. Death, he has learned, is not the end. There is life after, in those that have been left behind, and it is a challenge greater than any ever encountered to survive, to embrace that life and make it something worthwhile. It is a test of lonely nights, unanswered questions, and blind stumbling. He catches his breath and grins, euphoric as the sunlight pours down on him and the breeze lifts his hair – _he _had known this, and had left this trial as one more lesson, the last gift of strength he could impart on the partner and soul mate who had given _him_ everything he'd lacked. He hears the quiet release of breath around him and feels the joy that spills out of them as they all smile their relief. It was not what he expected or wished for – there was no grand event, no great sign from beyond the grave, but it is exactly what was needed. Because here in the Valley, his heart is just as it was back in Domino, but only now can he find a word for the feeling – full. _He _has not gone because he lives in the hearts that have stayed behind; they will be together always, because _he _never truly left.

This is triumph over death – over endings, separation, loss, and grief. And, he is, always has been and will be, Yugi Mutou, the King of Games – they never stood a chance.

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Afterword: If you have thoughts you want to share or opinions, I'd love to hear them! Review if the mood strikes you :)


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